


En Passant

by Vanny



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-19
Updated: 2011-06-19
Packaged: 2017-10-20 13:18:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vanny/pseuds/Vanny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A slightly closer examination of a pair of doomed pawns from the Grimdark Rose playable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	En Passant

You are a Prospitian soldier watching an enemy. He is standing to your left. He pays you no mind. A simple thrust of your sword would do it, so you grasp its hilt. The field is wrong--the stone walls around you are damp, and they feel a hundred miles away from the wide-open battlefield of Skaia. But the floor is checked, and he is from Derse, and there would be some comfort in lashing out as you have been taught and winning back a little blood for doomed Prospit. A quick death in passing.

But you hesitate, and he looks up. His carapace is dark and glossy, his eyes almost luminously white in the dimness. His mouth opens a little and he reaches for his own sword. His hand shakes, and he never connects. He turns to face you and raises empty palms to you. “Enough,” he says, hoarse and weary, “enough.” And you can’t remember the last time someone spoke to you. Your commanding officer shouted an order before Jack Noir’s wings spread across the sky, and after that there was only screaming.

So you release your sword and nod. The war is over. Your monarchs have disappeared and his are dead. Noir slaughters indiscriminately. There is nothing to fight over.

He is looking at you with an odd half-smile, a foolish expression that makes you want to spit and hold him at once. “Did you hear about the rebellion?” he says, “about the Villein? Maybe he’ll--”

“He won’t make it.” It’s all you can do not to shout at him. It’s easy to forget that he wasn’t raised on cloud-gazing like you were. “He’ll go into exile.” 

You thought you were the one breaking bad news to him, but he’s holding his hands out to you and you take them, lacing white over black. His hands are hot, reassuringly hard, and you squeeze them, almost crushingly, and he doesn’t flinch. Slowly, you release him, and your hands rest loosely in one another’s.

Later, Jack Noir comes. The air booms, pressing on the membranes of your ears, unable to bear the heat of his passage in silence. The air stinks of ozone and blood. The black pawn squeezes your hands once and, still holding on, steps between you and the dark shape coalescing from green fire. He stands straight, like a soldier, proud, before he is torn in two. It is sweet and useless; you die only moments later.


End file.
